Although I asked Orson Welles in 10 different ways why he put his camera in a certain unusual place for one of his movies, I nearly always received the same basic answer: he simply thought the scene looked better from there. Occasionally, he apologised for being less than illuminating. When I asked why he had shown a moment from such an "odd angle", he said that to him it wasn't odd. Exasperated after a series of this sort of questions, Welles finally told me that he was actually just like the man in the joke who goes to his doctor and says: "I don't know what's the matter with me, doc, but I just don't feel right." So the doctor says: "All right - well, tell me everything you do from the moment you wake up till you go to sleep." The guy says: "OK - well, I wake up, then I vomit, then I brush my -" "Wait a second," the doctor says. "You mean right after you wake up every morning, you vomit?" The man says: "Yeah, doesn't everybody?" Orson smiled. "That's me and my supposedly strange way of seeing things. To me it all seems quite normal."

Similarly, Wes Anderson finds his own vision quite normal, yet it is as uniquely (and recognisably) his as Welles's, and equally without self-conscious pretensions. Also like Welles, Wes is one of those rare picture-makers who can see the whole movie in his head long before he shoots. Since he's already seen it in his mind's eye, this gift gives him a very strong sense of what exactly he wants during filming. The script of The Royal Tenenbaums - written by Wes and his usual writing partner Owen Wilson (who also gives a spirited, complicated performance in a key role) - is a perfect blueprint for the finished film.

The draft I read just before they started shooting is essentially the movie Wes made, and I thought the script was brilliant. The picture is superb. The amazing cast of star actors are each perfectly chosen for their roles, not surprising because Wes and Owen wrote pretty much all the roles with the same players in mind. Many people have a dream cast they write for but know they'll never get; Wes just wouldn't take no for an answer and finally got them all. His laid-back attitude seemed to be (this was unspoken) that he'd already seen them in the film and knew they were going to be great, so why would they not do it?

Apart from his gifts of visualisation, Anderson's determination to get his own way - his relentless tenacity - marks him conclusively as a born picture-maker. This is not a question of ego either, but rather an essential character trait in a field where 300 different opinions and 500 alternative possibilities have to be dealt with quickly and efficiently. All these muscular abilities are in direct contrast to the way Anderson looks or conducts himself personally. He is rail-thin, bookish, somewhat tweedy, polite, soft-spoken, shy - a terribly nice, intelligent, pleasant-looking, quick-witted, and insatiably curious young Texan from Houston. Wilson, on the other hand, who was first seen in Bottle Rocket (1996) - the first film Anderson and Wilson wrote and Anderson directed - has very quickly become recognised as a star performer of quirky dramatic and comic genius.

The Royal Tenenbaums grew directly out of Anderson's desire to make a film in New York City. He had moved here after the release of the wonderful second film Anderson and Wilson wrote, Rushmore (1998). I remember Wes telling me at the time that he wanted to do a movie about an eccentric family of New Yorkers living in a large house somewhere in Manhattan. I suggested a couple of plays or movies for him to check out, and he spent a long time alone and with Owen (who acted in a couple of movies in the meantime) - getting familiar with New York and stories of families in this city. The disparate influences on the final work might be apparent to some: JD Salinger's Glass family, Kaufman and Hart, Dawn Powell and Orson Welles.

But The Royal Tenenbaums is very much its own thing, and stands out as an exceptionally gifted, quirky and original director's triumphant third work - his best so far. There's the same wry wit behind all three Anderson pictures, and each has the same degree of self-confidence. Polly Platt - Anderson's first producer, along with James L Brooks - told me that on Bottle Rocket, she could immediately tell he was talented because of the total assurance he had about what he wanted, indeed his insistence on it - all to the good because the movie is a thorough going delight: a charmingly perverse, mordantly funny look at a particular boy-man's world that defines in microcosm an awful lot of the male syndrome.

The film attracted little audience attention but led none the less to Wes and Owen's breakthrough with Rushmore, the story of another kind of outsider, a sort of artistic overachieving freak of a teenager in a world of conformity. The idea of the overachiever is taken to even greater and more varied lengths in The Royal Tenenbaums, but what ties the three films together is not so much their thematic similarities as their particular style, which lies in the personality of the picturemaker. When I once asked Howard Hawks which directors over the years he had liked best, he replied: "I liked almost anybody that made you realise who the devil was making the picture...because the director's the storyteller and should have his own method of telling it." With a Wes Anderson film, you know who the devil made it, yet his style is as difficult to describe as only the best styles are, because they're subtle.

Perhaps the device of the book and the narrator which Anderson and Wilson adopted for The Royal Tenenbaums creates a more easily describable style but that's actually only a technique. It does, however, in some ways help to define the indirect, elliptical, yet often emotionally resonant Anderson touch. I'm especially glad that Wes is so young, because now we all have a great many Wes Anderson pictures to look forward to. He brings a particular quality to his people, a kind of warmth and humanity seen from a wickedly humorous perspective that is at the same time compassionate. Because his movies are exceedingly likeable, with a kind of knowing innocence, it could be easy to miss the underlying gravity, and perhaps the avant-garde will find Anderson's pictures too accessible.

I hope not. Anderson is bound to be misunderstood, but then that's a large club for artists, and he is a genuine one. After knowing Wes for a while (and being thankful that he is considerably film literate - in other words, that he has a clear sense of what has preceded him, also a rarity with directors these days) I quoted a line from a favourite picture of mine (and his, it turned out), applying the phrase to him. In Hawks's Rio Bravo (1959), John Wayne expresses to a friend his admiration for Ricky Nelson's youthful professionalism: "It's nice to see a smart kid for a change."

I just watched 'The Last Picture Show' for a second time this evening, and I'm kicking myself for not including it in my nominations for the decapentacon last year -- I think its easily one of the best films I've ever seen. I love how it bridges the gap between youth and middle age -- the kids and the grownups could switch places and there would be no difference in the story, since they're all stuck in the same rut or on the same precipice, and/or dealing with the same problems. One of the things I've noticed since I graduated from high school is that some of my friends will refer to certain things (arguments, crushes, etc) as 'high school shit' but I think high school shit is something you deal with all your life (I may be proved wrong, but I doubt it); it's just that high school is generally the first time you experience it and you so you always associate such drama with it. Anyway, that's what this movie meant to me on this viewing.

I just finished reading Easy Rider, Raging Bulls, and I wonder how accurate its portrayal of Bodonovich is. I'm sure he was indeed pretentious as all hell, but Biskind seemed to take a little too much delight in relating his fall from grace.

You really think so? I know there's a lotta supposed bad stuff in there about him, but that's how I got introduced to Bogs (indeed to all of those directors, really). Biskind is really only able to describe the fall so well because he builds him up as being one of the most talented and (earliest) successful of that Hollywood new wave. He and Scorsese and Ashby seem to come off the best...

Anyway, great article above. PB's got that rare gift of the movie lover; thankfully he's not one of these older guys who wants to be an ass and rip on all the new young blood. BTW, thanks to David Chase, isn't it great to see him every now and again on Sopranos?!

Logged

Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary: the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.

When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.

I just watched 'The Last Picture Show' for a second time this evening, and I'm kicking myself for not including it in my nominations for the decapentacon last year -- I think its easily one of the best films I've ever seen.

Ok, now you're obligated to go get the Paper Moon DVD. See if you like that more than LPS. It's without a doubt one of those movies I could watch over and over and over. You'll fall in love with Paper Moon, I'm sure.

According to today's New York Post, Bogdanovich directed the sixth episode of the new Sopranos season. Airs April 11th.

I always wondered about how truthful Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is, Spielberg claims everything about him is a lie. I'm reading His new book about Miramax, Sundance, Redford, I'm only a 100 pages in, but it's really good.

While I'm sure the truth is "fictionalized" a bit, to make it more dramatic and interesting, I very much doubt if there's much lies about 'Berg. Maybe he doesn't like the book because he comes off as such a cancer to good cinema...

But I dunno for sure. It certainly fits in with my view of him.

Logged

Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary: the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.

When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.

so after seeing The Last Picture Show (and loving it) I watched What's Up Doc? this weekend. I have to admit, I didn't like it. I think it's more to blame that I'm not a slap stick humor type of guy than on the actual film itself. The chase sequence was fun, but my laughs were few and far between and in a film where every thing is supposed to generate a laugh, that's not good.